


Foreign Bodies

by Atlanta_Black, local_doom_void



Series: Harry Potter Co-Writes [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Harry Potter is a Good Friend, Hermione Granger is a Good Friend, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Horcruxes, Multi, No Bashing, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Possession, Redemption, Ron Weasley is a Good Friend, Sane Voldemort (Harry Potter), Sharing a Body, Slytherin's Locket, Untagged Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24092635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atlanta_Black/pseuds/Atlanta_Black, https://archiveofourown.org/users/local_doom_void/pseuds/local_doom_void
Summary: In retrospect, of course one of them was going to get possessed over the course of the war. The only surprise, actually, is that nobody had anticipated it happening.---In which Ron Weasley finds a locket, Voldemort discovers emotions, and the Trio adopts – rather, is adopted by – a bossy cobra.
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley
Series: Harry Potter Co-Writes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1875193
Comments: 52
Kudos: 264





	1. It's All In Your Head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (drumroll please)
> 
> The Chaos Wives Present... their Second Co-write, now with double the humor!
> 
> We solemnly swear that we have an ending and a plot. Kit wrote an outline, so you _know_ it's been sufficiently planned.

It’s only a locket.

Ron Weasley doesn’t think very much about picking it up. It’s heavier than he would have expected – a solid piece of metal, set with small green gemstones that only look properly green when the light catches on it. Maybe once it had been gold. Now it just seems discolored and stained by age. The chain looks like it’s not the original chain, made of a tarnished black that is probably supposed to be silver underneath all the discoloration. It doesn’t really match the rest of it.

For a moment Ron thinks about how Mum was going on about Dark Artifacts (definitely, he thinks, spoken with the capital letters). He thinks about how she wouldn’t let them touch anything with their bare hands, not that it isn’t too late for that. He thinks about curses and the importance of skin contact, pieces of information he’d picked up from listening to Bill talk about his job during that trip to Egypt a couple summers ago.

He thinks, too, about how that trip to Egypt required money. He thinks about how his robes are getting dangerously threadbare in the elbow and the hem near his ankles. He thinks about how curses are terribly hard to get off of you once they’ve sunk through your bare skin and into your blood, and he considers that he doesn’t feel terrible, all things considered. The house is still as gloomy as ever, despite Mum’s attempts to clear it up, and Harry’s ill mood is still hanging over their shared room like a storm cloud.

He considers how much money this thing must be worth, if it’s made of gold as solid as the weight would seem to make it. If those green gemstones are real gemstones, and not just glass enchanted to reflect a certain color, then maybe it would be worth a _lot_ of money.

The locket sways gently on its chain as he holds it up higher, trying to see if his untrained eyes can see anything about those gems. He can’t (of course, what did he expect?), but he does see how the sunlight glimmers off the metal. He sees the craftsmanship that went into the latch, and he appreciates that, though he tries his hardest, he can’t seem to get it open.

He puts it in his pocket, and goes about his business. That night he tucks it away into the side of his trunk when he gets dressed for bed, and he –

– Forgets about it.

  


At Hogwarts, while he’s furiously unpacking to deal with the unfairness of the toad’s treatment of Harry – on their first day of classes! – Ron finds the locket again.

Huh. He’d forgotten all about it.

Carefully, he frees it from the edge of his trunk, where it’s gotten wedged in between an old textbook and a slightly loose piece of siding. It’s just as heavy – just as tarnished, and somehow still just as fascinating. He forgets about his method of using unpacking as stress relief, and instead climbs onto his bed, lying back and drawing the curtains around him. The locket rests heavy in his hands as he stares at it, wondering if he’ll ever be able to open it.

He spends a good hour trying and still doesn’t manage to open it, not even with an _Alohomora_.

Ron smiles grimly to himself, and yet he feels excitement. It’s a challenge then.

  


The locket resists fingers, nails, the prying of potions knives, and unlocking charms aplenty. The more he works at it the more Ron grows determined to get inside. Lockets are supposed to hold little portraits in them, aren’t they? He wonders what sort of portrait is stuck inside here. Hopefully not some Black family ancestor who’s old as dirt, but on the other hand, that wouldn’t really surprise him considering where he found it. All the same, his quest has left him wondering what kind of person is inside. Will it be a talking portrait? Will it be willing to talk with him at all, if it’s a Black, or will it scorn him for his robes and the friends he chose? (Fuck off, he thinks pre-emptively.)

His fingers itch to pick idly at the unyielding latch whenever he’s distracted. He rubs at the seam of it in his pocket when he’s nervous in Defense class. While they’re running and hiding from the Inquisitorial Squad. When Snape glares particularly harshly at Harry during Potions class, he reaches down into his pocket and _squeezes_ the metal, and waits for calm to return, so he can maybe avoid snapping at the great berk and getting himself thrown out of the classroom.

He almost takes it to the Ministry, before he realises that he doesn’t want to potentially lose it there. If he dies, he’d rather they find it in his trunk. Maybe Ginny will like it. Girls who aren’t Hermione like jewelry, don’t they?

He never tells anyone about it, even when he gets home for the summer and flings his trunk open, feeling quite relieved to see it snugly in its hiding place just where he left it. Even when he starts to wear it under his tunic every day, there doesn’t seem to be much point to talking about it. He doesn’t need to justify himself, after all.

The locket merely… is.

  


Ronald Weasley is many things, but the one thing he will never be is a morning person. There have been many times where he’s blinked awake only to find himself already sitting in the great hall, a spoon in his hand. A few memorable times he hadn’t even fully woken up until he’d already been sitting in class, a book mysteriously open in front of him.

Hermione hates this. At one point she had convinced herself it meant that he had some type of horrifying, debilitating illness because, “It just can’t be healthy to be walking around in the morning, talking to us and then later have no memory of it!” He’s pretty sure that she’s just off her rocker. Ginny had done the same thing before the diary incident in her first year. It was only after that mess that she’d started snapping awake full of spite and ready to fight.

Either way, the point is it’s normal. He’s not the only who does it. It’s nothing to worry about, even though it does seem to be happening more often since they returned for their sixth year at Hogwarts.

  


Wednesday starts normally, sun shining, birds chirping, and Ron stumbling out of bed with eyes still closed.

He doesn’t actually remember waking up or getting out of bed. Doesn’t even realize he’s awake until he feels water touching his face. He grumbles and tries to cling tighter to the sleep haze. He _hates_ Wednesdays. Wednesdays is potions, is ages of listening to Snape snap and snarl and drone on and on.

Actually, considering how much he hates potions, he feels strangely happy. Almost giddy. He’s not sure why but he can figure it out once he finishes waking up. He’s woken up happy for no reason before, it’s nothing to worry about.

He really should probably go make sure Harry was awake. They’d been up way too late last night, and Hermione would be pissed if he let Harry oversleep, especially after they had promised her they wouldn’t do just that. He’s mentally halfway to Harry’s bed before he realizes that his body hasn’t moved, and that he is in fact still standing under the steaming shower, hands in his hair, feet planted.

The locket thumps against his chest as his body moves and he tries to frown. He doesn’t usually wear it in the shower. In fact, he doesn’t usually shower when he wakes up, he just washes his face. Showering requires him getting up far too early. But here he is, in the shower, locket on. He still wants to frown, but instead he can’t seem to get rid of the strange smile tugging at his lips. Maybe he’s still asleep? It doesn’t feel like a dream but he’s had dreams before that don’t feel like dreams, that started off normal as could be before they turned into nightmares. There have been more of those than he really ever cares to think about.

He’s still idly weighing the odds of this being a dream when his body seems to decide it’s done showering. Although, now that he’s more aware of what’s happening, he supposes he doesn’t know for sure that this is his body. This really, really could just be some weirdly realistic dream that is going to go sideways any moment now.

His hand comes up to rest on the mirror and yes, that is his hand, this isn't some strange dream brought on from listening to Harry spin weird conspiracy theories. It's his hand, his freckles, his looping waxy scars. But the hand is wiping away the steam on the glass without his permission and no matter how hard he tries the hand doesn't drop. Doesn't fall to his side.

His eyes find the locket first, gleaming bright gold against his chest. For the first time, he notices how the S that’s etched onto the surface of it looks eerily similar to a snake. The snake in turn looks eerily similar to the banner he sees hanging in the great hall every day. He meets his own eyes in the mirror, feeling as if he’s terribly far away from himself, and feels that slow creeping suspicion flare into a full blown realization.

 _Oh…_ he thinks, even as he watches a foreign smirk spread over his face. _Really, we should have expected this._ His eyes flash red for barely a second and he sighs as loud as he can in the confines of his own head. _Of course one of us was going to be possessed. It was bound to happen eventually, wasn't it. I really should be surprised it hasn’t happened sooner._

There’s a brief flicker of confusion that seems to come from the front of his mind and in the mirror he watches his eyebrows tug down in annoyance. It’s unsettling to see his face making movements without his permission. Or, it would be unsettling if he could feel anything around the apathy that’s settled over the part of his brain that seems to be ‘his’.

“Why exactly – ” His mouth is moving, and that is his voice, but the strange inflection, the way his tongue curls around the words, is unfamiliar. “ – are you not surprised at being possessed?”

 _Well,_ he thinks towards what seems to be the front of his mind, or what seems to be his perception of the front of his mind. Does his mind have a front? _You’re You-Know-Who, right?_

His mind is flooded with disbelief suddenly, the emotion thick and syrupy. “No. I do not know who. Would you care to elaborate on who exactly you think I am?” His voice bites the words out in a way that leaves him sounding eerily close to Hermione. He would have rather not known he could sound like that.

 _You’re Voldemort,_ he thinks, the thought almost quiet despite there not being any physical sound. _Who else would you be?_

His body spins away from the mirror, hand snapping out to grip the sink. “How can you possibly know that?”

 _It’s always you._ The bitterness coating the thought seems to spread until it’s all he can feel. _It’s always been you. Why would that change now?_

He can feel the hand gripping the sink tighten, can feel his bones creaking under the pressure. It’s the strangest feeling to know that it is your body you are feeling and yet, to have no say in what it does next. Voldemort doesn’t say anything else. Doesn’t look in the mirror again.

Ron floats in the back of his mind idly wondering at the lack of threats. Watches as Voldemort wakes up Harry and wonders how long he’s been sharing his brain with another person. Watches as Harry grumbles and turns his head into the pillow and wonders…

If this is Voldemort, where is all the hate? Where is the burning, all consuming desire to kill his best friend?

  


Voldemort doesn’t talk to him for a week. It’s as if he has no interest in the person whose body he just rudely took over. Ron did wonder for a bit whether Harry or Hermione would catch on. Shouldn’t they just _know_ that someone else was using his body? Shouldn’t they hear Voldemort say something and immediately guess what had happened? He wants them to know. Even if they can’t do anything about it, he wants them to know.

He’s only a little offended when they don’t, which he guesses is better than being fully offended.

Voldemort must have been lurking in the dark corners of his mind for as long as Ron has had the locket. He must have, because he imitates Ron almost perfectly. He runs his words together the same way Ron does, even though every time he does it annoyance sweeps through his mind like a breeze. He doesn’t eat quite as much as Ron normally would, but he eats enough that Harry and Hermione don’t notice. He talks about quidditch and defends the Chudley Cannons and watches Hermione just a little bit too much. He plays chess against Harry and lets him win just so Harry will smile. Listens to Hemrione when she pulls him aside to worry about whether Harry is sleeping enough. He’s good at pretending. He’s good at pretending to _be_ Ron.

But sometimes Hermione will say something that goes over Ron’s head and Voldemort will start to lean forward interestedly before remembering that the body he’s inhabiting would not care about the details of ‘emergency human transfiguration as a curse-breaking methodology’. Sometimes Harry will storm into their dorm furious or wake up screaming and Ron can feel the confusion settle like a blanket over their mind. Can feel Voldemort trying to comprehend the emotions that Harry is having so that he can respond the way that Ron would.

It’s an odd week overall. Ron keeps as quiet as he can in his own head, not willing to endanger Hermione or Harry when he doesn’t know yet what Voldemort is planning.

  


Voldemort always seems to be bored during class. Ron is also bored, but he finds it strange that the guy who’s interested in Hermione’s rants is bored during class. Still Voldemort is, definitely, so very, very bored.

They’ve been staring at the same spot on the board for ten minutes now, the area of his mind that seems to hold Voldemort a blank haze that feels like static, his hand moving across the paper in a fantastic imitation of notetaking. If Ron ever gets his body back, he’s going to remember this so that he can make good use of it.

It’s as Ron’s contemplating this, and whether or not Hermione yelling at him when she finds out is worth it, that the hand that has been supporting his chin slips out from under him and he abruptly falls forward before jerking himself back up.

He…

He jerked himself back up.

He blinks down at his desk, rolls his shoulders, taps his fingers, taps the quill that he’s picked up, looks up at the board. He’s himself.

 _Don’t get used to it,_ he hears himself, hears _Voldemort_ , think. The thought is somehow cutting despite being in his own head.

He wants to answer, wants to give a snarky thought back, but can’t seem to figure out how to get the thought directed at the spot where Voldemort is. Instead it all just feels like it’s aimlessly bouncing around his mind. Or, the thought is reaching Voldemort and he’s being ignored. These are both likely options.

He amuses himself tapping the quill against the desk, fidgeting just to fidget, because he can, because his body is doing what he tells it to do. As soon as class is over he’s going to tell Hermione and Harry about this. He knows Voldemort is there now, so it should be easier to keep control of his body now that he has it. He really just needs to overpower him long enough to get the basics out. That shouldn’t be too hard. Right?

 _That shouldn’t be too hard, right?_ The mocking tone slides through his brain and leaves Ron fighting down the urge to snap out loud just to make sure Voldemort hears exactly what he thinks about that.

 _You’re a bloody asshole._ He thinks this as furiously as he can, trying as hard as he can to make Voldemort hear the thought and some of the emotion at least must filter back to him because he lets out another mocking snort that has Ron’s hand clenching around the quill tight enough to hurt. Well, he’ll show him. He isn’t going to let some half-assed spirit possess him even if it is bloody Voldemort. He can do this.

  


He cannot do this. He’s barely gotten one step out of the classroom before Voldemort yanks control away from him. They nearly fall from the sudden change in pilot and Ron is left sitting in his own mind, unable to do anything other than watch Voldemort pretend to be a student.

He falls back into apathy easily. It’s rather hard to stay angry when you’re just floating around in your own mind, and besides, it isn’t as if Voldemort is _doing_ anything. The Dark Lord is just going to class and eating and bickering with Hermione and going to quidditch practice with Harry.

He falls back into the apathy so easily, in fact, that it seems to piss Voldemort off.

  


“I could push her down the stairs.” he hears Voldemort mutter, hanging a little ways behind Harry and Hermione. “How would you like that?”

He’s very smug that Voldemort also hasn’t figured out how to silently interact with him. He also can’t find the energy to really be worried. _You could, but then what?_ he thinks. _At the very least you’ll give yourself away. At the worst, Harry might try to murder you._

Ron considers that for a moment, trying to decide if Harry would really do that, ignoring the offense he can feel creeping towards him.

_Yeah, Harry would definitely try to kill you. But if Hermione lives, she’ll succeed in murdering you._

  


“I could tell her exactly what I think about her. What everyone thinks of her,” Voldemort mutters a few days later while they’re sitting in the common room.

Ron considers this. He starts to answer, and then he considers again. _I would really rather you not do that,_ he thinks back, and lets his worry over the whole situation sink into their mind. _Just leave her alone. She hasn’t done anything._

A vicious wave of smugness leaves him feeling like he’s sinking through cotton. He’s still trying to figure out how to get out of it when Voldemort starts talking and misses what he says, isn’t sure he wants to hear anyways. But he pays attention right as Hermione’s eyes go flinty and the quill in her hand begins to look more like a weapon than a writing device.

“Is that so?” She asks quietly, her hair just barely frizzing with sourceless static. Harry is frozen on the floor between them, eyes darting nervously back and forth. “And here I thought you were finally growing up.”

Voldemort doesn’t move fast enough to avoid her fist and lays there blinking up at the ceiling long enough that she’s gone when they stand up. Harry’s glaring, and Ron briefly wonders if he’s going to get hit again. But all Harry does is huff in disgust and storm up to bed.

“You knew she’d do that.” Voldemort accuses and Ron’s never heard his voice go so flat.

_Honestly thought she was going to stab us with her quill, so really you got off lucky._

“I’m going to make you regret that.”

He doesn’t bother trying to hide his amusement at the thought and hopes he hasn’t just foolishly baited Voldemort into doing something much worse than throwing schoolyard insults around.

  


It’s evening in the Gryffindor common room when Voldemort seems to finally realise that Harry exists.

Ron and Harry are sitting at one of the few tables near the back. Most of the house has gone to bed, not that Ron is paying that much attention from the back of his mind. Allowing Harry to be so close to Voldemort, and so _unaware_ , makes him itch still. It’s a curious sensation to have your body itch in discomfort while you yourself aren’t in charge of anything about yourself. Ron is feeling it now, and has been for the past couple weeks, so he thinks he has plenty enough experience to say that it is _not_ enjoyable, not at all.

Voldemort, though, has never noticed Harry. Not properly, Ron means – of course Voldemort knows Harry exists. But none of his reactions have made much sense the entire time he’s been here, and if Ron had been less apathetic to the wonders of being the possession victim of a bratty Dark Lord, he might have spent a lot of time wondering about that. What’s Voldemort’s motive here? What’s his angle, his strategy? Everyone’s angle can be discerned if there’s enough time to think about it. Ron _should_ be able to notice the angle, if he only spends the time.

The problem here is that instead of the Voldemort Ron would have expected – a man who wears a rabid sort of mania as his primary emotion and always seems to be waiting for the first possible chance to finish Harry off, bystanders and witnesses be cursed – this Voldemort just treats Harry like another bystander to be fooled while he goes about his business. But if he isn’t here for Harry…

… What’s he here for? There’s a point here that Ron thinks he’s close to grasping. He’s still missing a piece but he’s close.

It’s been almost a week since Hermione punched them, and the gaps between the short moments where Voldemort loses his patience seem to be getting shorter and shorter. When the gaps become almost nothing, will there be some sort of watershed moment? Will he find his apathy abruptly torn away?

He doesn’t have time to finish thinking about this, though. Voldemort has turned to look at Harry, and for the first time he seems to be actually looking at Harry. There’s the strange sense of a bell chiming that passes through his mind. It didn’t come from Ron, so it must have been Voldemort.

The teen pushes a bit more strongly against the barrier separating them as he tries to determine what this means. It feels almost like a realisation seen from a distance in the way that Voldemort’s focus on Harry has suddenly sharpened, as if he’s finally looking and _seeing_ Ron’s best friend. While ordinarily Ron would probably be happy somebody was recognising Harry for his essential Harry-ness, and not for the Boy-Who-Lived-ness, this is not a person he wants to be recognising Harry’s Harry-ness.

“What’s up?” Harry is saying to Ron’s body. His green eyes look bewildered from behind his glasses, and Ron, who usually doesn’t let himself stare into them for too long, suddenly can’t look away because _Voldemort_ isn’t looking away. The utter bastard.

“Harry,” Voldemort says slowly.

 _What are you doing?!_ Ron yells at him from the back of their shared mind. Then he realises he shouldn’t be rooting for Voldemort to remain hidden inside of Ron, and that he might actually want this strange behavior, which sounds absolutely nothing like Ron. Maybe now Harry will realise something is wrong, and they can descend into the usual chaos of the school year – the parts that have nothing to do with grades and homework and classes.

If only Voldemort could possibly, maybe… stop staring into Harry’s eyes.

But Voldemort doesn’t stop. If anything he makes it worse by shifting closer to Harry on the bench and leaning in. Ron feels himself simultaneously leaning away, or rather, doing the mental motions required for leaning away, which feels a bit like scrabbling against a wall with no way out. Voldemort’s emotions burst over him then, fresh and utterly gleeful, as a single forceful thought streaks across their consciousness.

_Revenge._

_Fuck no,_ Ron says, ready to make the biggest nuisance of himself to give Harry time to get away should Voldemort attack.

Yet –

It’s not quite an attack in the classical sense of attack. There’s no screaming, no wands drawn. There’s nothing that would clue anyone watching in on the fact that this is most definitely an attack.

Voldemort brings Ron’s arms up and grips Harry’s shoulders firmly. Harry is doing that _thing_ he does when he’s confused where he just sits there dumbly and stares at whatever he finds strange. Right now that strange thing is Ron, but before Ron can assess any further, Voldemort has leaned even closer, and then –

 _Kiss, revenge!_ comes again the gleeful thought with a strange lack of coherence.

 _Holy shit,_ Ron mentally whispers.

Despite being possessed, Ron isn’t disconnected from his body. He can feel everything his body touches, just as if he were there. All the temperatures and textures are perfectly present, and one of those textures, right now, is soft, warm skin against Ron’s lips.

Voldemort is _kissing Harry._

But he’s using Ron’s body to do it, so Ron feels pretty much exactly like _he’s_ kissing Harry, too.

Oh Merlin.

_He’s kissing Harry!_

He can’t think much more beyond that. Then Harry sees something – Ron can’t quite be sure what it is, and he doesn’t have time to ponder right now. Whatever it is, it’s enough for Harry to go from dull, limp surprise to, strangely, _anger_. At least, that’s the particular tilt of Harry’s eyebrows that means anger, and he reaches out to shove them fiercely away from him. That, too, seems to mean anger, and at first Ron just thinks it’s about the kiss. Has almost forgotten that there’s a bigger problem here than just the fact that he kissed Harry.

(He kissed Harry. Was he clear on that? Had that really happened?)

Harry gasps in a breath and scrambles away faster than mere anger at an unwanted kiss would warrant. Ron follows the right sequence of emotions for a confused frown, only to find that Voldemort is also frowning confusedly.

“Voldemort,” Harry finally gasps out, throwing a dramatic and accusatory index finger towards them. “Voldemort!”

Somehow, Ron is happier that he isn’t angry about the kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All humans in this chapter are utter disasters, except Hermione, who is a queen.


	2. Liminal Headspace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Kit**
>
>> "Local Man Not Enjoying His Possession After All, Host Body and Friends Too Irritating"

Ron should probably be more surprised by – well, by a lot of things. If Voldemort’s half-baffled, half-enraged reaction is anything to go by, most people would not be so terribly resigned to a revelation regarding their own sexuality. Yet he’s already moved past the initial shock, and really, he thinks what surprises him most isn’t that he’s attracted to boys. It’s that he somehow hadn’t realized this much earlier.

In retrospect there had been so many chances for him to notice. He had so many chances to realize that it wasn’t just Hermione that he was half in love with. How many times has he watched Harry rush into danger, felt his heart clench with an emotion that had always been left named as friendship? He’s never bothered to examine it any further than that, and he can’t decide if he regrets this or not.

Of all his regrets, though, it’s a minor one.

No, what’s much more worrying here, other than the bit where he had kissed Harry _(he had kissed Harry)_ , is the side complication where Harry doesn’t know that Ron is still in here. He doesn’t know that just because their eyes had turned red when they had kissed Harry _(they had kissed Harry)_ , it didn’t mean that Ron himself was gone for good. And of course, Voldemort can’t be fussed with letting Harry know that Ron is still very much aware and kicking.

The already complex situation is even further complicated by Hermione not believing Harry about Voldemort. For once Harry is almost completely correct, and Hermione just stares at him with a strange, baffled expression and tells him to ‘grow up and stop acting like an emotionally stunted child’.

Predictably, Harry doesn’t take that well. Ron’s not really sure what she expected. Even Voldemort is bemused when she looks genuinely shocked at Harry’s anger.

Upon further consideration, he’s not sure she was thinking of anything other than getting back to whatever she was studying.

This still leaves the problem of Harry suspiciously following Ron around, but also refusing to talk to them. Hermione ignores both of them and mutters under her breath every time Harry tries to broach the subject. This just leaves Voldemort smug at what he views as a victory.

Ron’s not sure how long this would have gone on for, but suddenly, Harry stops paying any of them any attention one day. All his efforts are now focused on stalking Malfoy. This leaves Voldemort glaring every time Harry so much as breathes in Malfoy’s direction, Hermione alternating between glaring and huffing in exasperation every time Harry pulls out the map, and Ron, well, he’s really just tired. Although he would love to have the bloody Dark Lord out of his body so that he can focus on really picking apart the sudden urge to kiss both of his best friends.

Perhaps if he had his body to himself he would be able to muster up the energy to panic about said urge, but –

Well, there are bigger things to worry about, right?

  


Day three of Ron trying (and failing) to convince Voldemort to let him have just two days to talk to Harry is not going well.

_Listen,_ he thinks, hoping Voldemort can feel his agitation crawling around their brain, _just give me control of my body for the weekend. It’s not like you can’t grab control back at any time. I just want to talk to Harry._

"You don't need to talk to him. You'll just tell him that I'm here," Voldemort mutters, keeping his head bent low over whatever book it is he's reading.

_Obviously yes, of course I'm going to tell him,_ he mutters, or as close to a mutter as it can be while he’s stuck in his own head.

"Then why should I let you?" A passing Hufflepuff shoots them an odd look but hurries away when Voldemort glares.

_Because I'm asking nicely? Besides, it's not like they can make you leave. They can't kick you out or whatever it is you're worried about._

"I'm worried that they'll take this information straight to your god forsaken headmaster," he hisses, the sound so vicious that Ron has to resist the urge to recoil farther into his mind.

Ron can't help but wonder what had happened to cause him to hate Dumbledore so much. He thought that he knew what hatred felt like – the spiteful, irritated flavor that accompanies his thoughts of Malfoy. But Voldemort thinks about Dumbledore and it _burns_. He hadn't known that you could hate someone that much.

But then that's nearly a lie. He hates Voldemort something like this. Hates him for everything that he’s ever done to Harry. Hates the way he left shadows under Harry's eyes that Ron can’t do anything about. All the same, he can't seem to muster the same hatred up for the being sharing his head, can't seem to find that hatred in him unless he thinks of the abomination that stood in the ministry and made Harry scream.

That one... that one he hates.

It still feels different from whatever feeling is attached to Voldemort's thoughts ofDumbledore.

_Listen. Just let me have two days, please. I'll make sure that no one tells Dumbledore. I just want to talk to them._

"I don't care what you want."

_What if I beat you at something?_ He’s verging on desperate and he knows that Voldemort can feel it.

The scoff is far too loud in the quiet library. "As if you could beat me at anything," Voldemort mutters, the scorn settling over their mind like thorns.

_I could beat you at chess._

Voldemort pauses, hesitates, and Ron can feel vines of curiosity creeping towards him, looking for the trick.

He doesn't find a trick or a lie. Finds only a calm assurance that of course Ron can beat him, can beat Voldemort himself, at chess. Ron might not be good at school and books and learning but he is good at chess in a way that no one else in this school is. He is good at chess in a way that leaves even Hermione glaring at him. Once upon a time, he had thought that meant something. Now, he finds that it only means it's easier for him to see all the ways in which they could have all died. All the ways he could have lost them.

There’s a sigh, so soft that Ron wouldn’t have noticed if he couldn’t feel it himself, and then, “Fine. Tonight. One game, and when you lose, you’ll shut up about this.”

The wall that separates their thoughts seems to darken and Ron resists the urge to start cheering. _One game,_ he agrees, already planning his conversation with Harry. _One game and when I win, I get my body back for the weekend._

Voldemort scoffs again, a harsh sound that sounds wrong coming from Ron’s body, but he doesn’t say anything else. Now Ron just has to decide how to break this to Harry in a way that won’t end with him running screaming for Dumbledore.

  


He wins the game.

This doesn’t come as a surprise to him, but it leaves Voldemort reeling in shock. The Dark Lord is furiously reviewing every move as if there’s some way to dispute what Ron knows to be true. It had certainly been a close game – one of the hardest games he’s had the opportunity to play since first year when he nearly died. But at the end of it, he knew he would win.

He tries to not let that certainty creep too far into their shared thoughts. There’s too much of a chance that if Ron feels too overwhelmingly smug, Voldemort will go back on his end of the deal.

“I hate you,” Voldemort mutters low into his fist as he stares at the board. “Why couldn’t I hear your thoughts during that?”

His thoughts tilt sharply, the question making no sense. _What do you mean?_

“You were absolutely silent the entire game except for when you told me where to move your pieces,” he says, and Ron has never heard his own voice sound so… snotty.

_I didn’t do anything,_ he thinks back, mulling the idea of it over. _I was just focusing on the game._

Voldemort snorts and quick as a whip, Harry spins to glare at them. Voldemort smirks at Harry, and behind him he can see Hermione bury her face in her hands for a second. She looks tired. He can only imagine that Harry is driving her up a wall.

_Stop baiting him,_ he mutters, already knowing that Voldemort is going to ignore him. He seems to get some kind pleasure out of baiting Harry, which wouldn’t be so bad if Harry weren’t so easily baited.

He does, admittedly, find it strange that Hermione still doesn’t seem to believe Harry’s claims. But they’ve also been treated to a lecture about ‘not kissing your friends without permission’ and ‘it’s really great that you’ve come to terms with your sexuality’ and ‘I’m sure Harry will come around soon’. So, while it’s great that Hermione seems to think he’s matured, he’s also very much looking forward to seeing her face when she realizes he wasn’t the only person she had lectured.

“He makes it ever so easy though,” Voldemort murmurs, once again glaring at the chess board. Ron does have to concede that point, especially considering he had just thought the same thing.

_Not planning on going back on your word are you?_ he asks, trying to keep the words light and soft.

A beat of silence and then another snort of laughter. The sound is so unlike what he would expect to hear from Voldemort. “No, not at all.” Harry is still glaring at them. “Do have fun explaining this to them.” There’s something strange in the way he says the words, some undercurrent that Ron doesn’t understand, and not for the first time he curses the fact that he can’t hear Voldemort’s thoughts as well.

Curses it and then gets distracted by how quickly his elbows slip off his knees and how loud the chessboard is when it goes clattering onto the floor.

“You couldn’t have warned me,” he hisses, feeling his cheeks burn. Voldemort’s laughter rushes through him and he lays on the floor, reveling in each twitch of his fingers. He swears he’ll never take his own body for granted ever again.

  


The talk goes about as well as he had expected. Which is to say, it goes sideways within five minutes and he counts himself lucky for not getting stabbed with Hermione’s wand.

It takes a fast bit of talking but he does, eventually, get them both to agree on not telling Dumbledore. He doesn’t bring up the kiss – partly because Hermione is right there and he does not need her around for that. Partly because, well, Hermione is _right there_. He thought, still thinks, that they were, are, heading somewhere themselves. He has no idea how Harry fits into that. And even ignoring all of that, he doesn’t fancy talking about it when Harry keeps glaring and muttering about Voldemort being ‘an evil git’.

Also, Voldemort keeps snickering every time Harry glares their way and it’s very distracting.

So yes, all three of them are, mostly, on the same page now. They know Ron hasn’t been murdered for his body, which, while comforting, has resulted in them now going eerily silent every time he’s around them. So instead of enjoying the weekend with his friends, he’s laying outside, contemplating ways to get Voldemort out of his head. Might as well do it now while Voldemort can’t hear his thoughts.

“This is your fault,” he mutters, glaring up at the sky, trying not to think about how bloody bored he is.

_Yes. Your point?_

“Do you ever plan on leaving my body?”

His skin crawls at how silent his head suddenly goes. Have the birds always been that loud?

_I don’t know._ The words stick together, leaving his tongue feeling too heavy in his mouth. _I’ll do as I please and at the present, this body pleases me well enough._

He does, after turning the words over in his mind for a long while, translate that into, ‘I have no idea where to get my own body’. Which really helps neither of them and he doesn’t really enjoy the idea that even bloody Voldemort has no idea what to do about this problem.

“You could have at least made that sound less like a come-on, ya know?” he finally mutters some indeterminable amount of time later. Voldemort’s laughter is brighter than it has any reason to be and leaves him feeling as if spring has washed through his body.

He doesn’t let himself think about it.

  


The leaves are going red and Hermione’s taken to staring at them like they’re a particularly hard problem she can solve if she just stares hard enough and long enough. It’s unnerving to say the least.

Hermione and Harry have not, as far as they can tell, gone and told Dumbledore. They’re pretty sure of this since Dumbledore hasn’t come rushing into any of the rooms they’ve been in and dragged them out by their hair. Or cursed them. _Or killed us,_ Voldemort mutters viciously.

_He wouldn’t do that,_ Ron writes on his parchment and stares at it until Voldemort pays attention.

_He wouldn’t let a pink harpy tear scars into your best friend's hand either. Right?_ The words lodge themselves at the base of his neck and he hopes the oncoming migraine sticks around when Voldemort takes back over, the bastard.

_You know I’m right,_ the man says, smug cotton shoving up against the back of Ron’s skull, and then his hand is flinging the quill across the table at Harry without his permission.

Harry for his part looks as if he would quite like to take the quill and stab it straight through Ron’s hand. Seemingly the only thing stopping him is that he does actually like Ron.

“Mister Weasley,” McGonagall says sharply, having appeared in front of their desk at some point without him noticing. “If you are quite done throwing things at Mister Potter, perhaps you would like to answer the question on the board.” 

Ron gulps and then stutters out the answer that Voldemort scoffs at him, finding it strangely satisfying when McGonagall’s mouth just barely parts in surprise. Is this how Hermione feels every time she gets an answer right?

“Well done, Mister Weasley,” McGonagall says after a moment. He can feel Hermione glaring at him. Or glaring at Voldemort. Or both of them. At this point it’s a fair toss up either way. 

Hermione’s stare doesn’t leave the side of his face for the rest of the class. 

  


“Why did you throw that quill at Harry?” Hermione asks later, while all three of them are huddled in the common room doing homework.

Rather, while she’s doing homework. Harry is far too busy alternating between glaring at Voldemort and glaring at the map he has open in front of him. (Ron doesn’t want to know. He really doesn’t.) Voldemort had been doing Ron’s homework and then had gotten distracted by a mistake in the textbook, and is now writing a very detailed correction that seems to have turned into him editing the entire textbook. Merlin forbid any of their housemates catch him doing this. He’ll never live it down.

“I didn’t throw the quill, Ron did,” Voldemort mutters, not even looking up. _Emeric Switch is a moron,_ Voldemort thinks viciously, slashing another word out in the textbook. That’s another thing that has started happening more frequently – Voldemort’s thoughts filtering through to Ron. He thinks it’s only a matter of time until they can hear each other all the time, no matter who’s in control.

It’s not quite as horrifying a thought as it could have been.

“Yes, you did,” Hermione insists, sounding oddly confident. “Ron looked weirdly betrayed and confused when it happened.”

“Why does this matter?” A whole paragraph is marked out this time, the ink bleeding down the page. _Who the hell let this bastard write a textbook for children?_

“Were you trying to hurt him?” They look up at that, finding Hermione leaning halfway across the table, hands pressed flat against the table, eyes hard.

“You must be joking?” Voldemort says flatly, and honestly, Ron can’t fault him for it. “What harm could I do your precious friend with a _quill_?”

Somehow this is the wrong thing to say. Ron knows he’s missing something horribly obvious. Hermione’s eyes have narrowed so far they’re little more than slits and Harry has gone unnaturally still in his seat, eyes locked on them.

_It’s a test,_ he finds himself thinking, almost unconsciously. Voldemort shifts in his seat, fingers tightening where they’re still gripping the book. He just doesn’t understand what the test is.

There’s a long drawn out moment of silence, where Hermione seems to get tenser for every moment Voldemort doesn’t say anything else. They glance at Harry once, and then look away just as quickly. Harry has never looked at Ron like that before. The green of his eyes gone hard like jewels and his mouth a thin line. Even when they’d fought in fourth year, he’d never looked at Ron like he hated him.

It leaves an uncomfortable emotion lodged in his throat, strong enough that even Voldemort can feel it. Is helpless against fighting it away.

Hermione exhales loudly, flopping back into her seat and tapping her quill against the table. Harry goes back to glaring at the map. Voldemort eyes Hermione carefully for another moment and when she does nothing but stare, goes back to editing the textbook.

Ron doesn’t hear anymore of his thoughts. He’s missing something. He knows he is. Made a wrong move and now he’s two squares back and lost a pawn.

  


The pieces click together a week later when he watches Hermione bodily put herself between Harry and Voldemort, and he wonders how he hadn’t caught on immediately. Wonders how he could have forgotten exactly who it is sharing his body.

_You don’t seem to hate Harry that much,_ he thinks, placing each word down between them slowly. _Why is that?_

Voldemort scoffs, propping their head against a fist and idly flicking through a textbook. Another editing project probably. “Why would I expend energy on hating a child?” He mutters quietly, keeping his head down so that no one can see his lips move. They’re getting better at communicating without anyone noticing.

_Yes, but…_ he hesitates. Does he really not know?

_Do I not know what?_ The thought slinks back towards him, tinged with suspicion. He’s gone still in a way that Ron has never been able to manage.

_He’s Harry Potter,_ he thinks softly, waiting for something, anything.

“Yes, funny enough I do know his name,” Voldemort says dryly. “What does it matter? He’s still just a child.”

“You really have no idea who he is to you?” Hermione’s voice snaps suddenly and they tense, twisting to find her in the chair behind them, although neither of them seem to have noticed her arriving.

“Excuse me?” Voldemort says sharply, turning them all the way around. Hermione’s face twists strangely, nose scrunching up, eyes narrowing.

“Harry. You don’t know who he is,” she says slowly, as if she’s having a great revelation. “You don’t have those memories.”

_What memories?_ The thought springs past him, closely followed by, _Surely she doesn’t mean…_

“I know who he is in relation to my other self if that is what you mean,” Voldemort says slowly. He’s studying Hermione’s face carefully, noting the way her eyebrows nearly disappear into her hair. “I still don’t see what that has to do with me?” Ron can feel him reaching past the wall that’s normally between them, looking for the answer in Ron’s own thoughts but he shoves himself as far back as he can. Best to let Hermione deal with this.

Hermione stares incredulously at them for a while, eyes going even wider when she finally grasps that Voldemort is being serious. “He’s Harry Potter. You don’t want any type of revenge against him? You don’t want to kill him?”

_Kill him? He’s a child._ The thought is so bewildered that Ron snorts, the sound catching on the thought.

_You have no idea how weird it is to hear you say that,_ he thinks, dragging himself out of the corner he’d stuffed himself in. _You, or your other self anyways, have tried to kill Harry at least once every year since we started Hogwarts._

There’s a moment of silence, his brain buzzing unpleasantly at the blank feeling.

“I have not,” Voldemort blurts, the shock clear as day in his voice. “Why would I have done that?” he demands, focusing on Hermione again.

“Did you know that your face goes slack when the both of you talk inside Ron’s head?” she asks curiously, leaning forward just a bit.

_Don’t answer that or she’ll start treating us like an experiment,_ he tells Voldemort, not liking the curious gleam in her eyes. The problem with Hermione realizing that she doesn’t have to be scared of Voldemort is that she’s Hermione, and Hermione always has questions. The only thing that stops the questions is the threat of someone else’s death. Sadly, they’ve just lost that.

“Tell me why my other self would want to kill Harry and I’ll consider answering that,” Voldemort says, voice dry and uninterested. This works on Hermione but Ron can feel Voldemort’s own curiosity rushing around their head and he has the worst feeling about this. He’s going to have to listen to them talk about academics.

They really need to get Voldemort _out_ of his head.

_Your priorities do not make any sense,_ Voldemort mutters and then blinks when Hermione snaps her mouth shut with an offended click.

“Excuse me? What does that mean?” she asks shrilly.

“I apologize, I did not mean to say that out loud,” Voldemort says slowly. Apparently being able to talk silently was going to have its own drawbacks.

She sniffs, still looking put out, but goes back to her explanation. “As I was saying, your other self wants to kill him because Harry’s the one responsible for vanquishing you.”

“No he’s not.”

“What do you mean I’m not?” Harry’s voice snaps from behind them suddenly and Voldemort nearly flings them off the chair with how fast he turns. They turn just in time to find Harry pulling the invisibility cloak off from where he’s sat on the floor in front of their chair.

For a minute Ron thinks that Voldemort is going to try and strangle Harry. He can feel their heart pounding and was just as thrown by Harry’s sudden experience, so it’s not that he would blame him in this particular instance – except he’s nearly positive that Harry’s just waiting for an excuse to go tell Dumbledore so it probably wouldn’t be the best idea.

“You are infuriating,” Voldemort says flatly. Harry shrugs, glaring up at them and leaning back. He’s not sure which one of them swallows roughly at the sight. “You very clearly had nothing to do with vanquishing my other self – ” Harry opens his mouth looking offended, “ – your mother is the most likely person to have been the cause of whatever occurred.”

Harry gapes up at them and he hears Hermione mutter an awed ‘of course’ under her breath. _Too bad your other self doesn’t seem to believe that._

_Yes, a pity. I would very much like to know why my other self is apparently trying to kill a child._

“That makes so much sense!” Hermione exclaims, coming around to sit next to Harry on the floor. “Why has no one else thought of that?!” 

_Tell her that she’s full of it and I know she thought of that ages ago,_ he mutters. He has the vaguest memory of Hermione in first year ranting at length about how Lily Potter should have gotten at least half the credit if not all of it. It had been a very long rant. She had repeated it multiple times. If pressed he thinks he may still be able to repeat half of her points.

“Ronald wants me to tell you that, and this is a direct quote, so please for the love of Merlin, do not punch me again. He says, she’s full of it and I know she thought of that ages ago,” Voldemort says, keeping an eye on Hermione’s hands just to make sure. _If she punches us again I’m going to stop telling you answers during class._

Hermione flushes, skin going a shade darker. “I didn’t think he would remember that,” she mutters. “But! I was right!” She exclaims, the flush already fading in light of her being right again.

“Well that’s great, honestly,” Harry snaps, “But this doesn’t change the fact that Voldemort wants to kill me.”

“I do not,” Voldemort snaps back. “Did you not just hear me say that while you were lurking around, literally, behind my back.”

“It’s not your back! It’s Ron’s! If you would just leave then I wouldn’t have to lurk!” Harry nearly yells, slamming a hand on the ground and before Voldemort can even think to reply Hermione has slammed a pillow into Harry’s face.

“Would you be quiet,” she hisses, looking around the common room nervously.

Voldemort glances around as well, slouching further into the seat, presumably in an effort to look less Dark Lord-ish. Harry flings the pillow back at Hermione, much gentler, and scowls at them.

“So, just to be clear,” Hermione says after a moment, once the common room is back up to normal volume levels. “You don’t have any desire to kill Harry because he vanquished your other self?”

Voldemort rolls his eyes. “No. As I’ve already said twice, Lily Potter is the one who did the vanquishing. I have no desire to murder a child.”

A strangled, snarl tears out of Harry’s throat and honestly, if Voldemort had possessed anyone else Ron thinks Harry would have already tried to murder them.

_I do realize that, yes._ Voldemort thinks at him, sounding amused. _But if I had possessed anyone else their consciousness would have likely shut up and died. Which you did not._

_Fuck you. This is definitely the better option then._

There’s a pause during which Hermione stares intently at them as if she can determine whether or not they’re telling the truth just by staring and then—

— _wait a minute,_ he thinks suddenly, a burst of understanding washing over him. _You don’t have a plan on leaving my body because I’m not supposed to still be here!_

_Yes, obviously. Have you just figured this out?_

_Well, hah! I’m still here and good luck getting rid of me now,_ he huffs, mentally crossing his arms. It had never really occurred to him that Voldemort had meant to kill him but it does feel rather obvious now that he’s thought about it.

_Yes, again, obviously._ He pauses, tilts his head, considers Harry. _If you die now, Harry will definitely try to murder me. Which would be…. inconvenient._

Ron can’t help the way he breaks down into laughter at that. _You can just say you’re attached to him._ He says, still laughing.

“Shut up,” Voldemort mutters, rubbing at their head. “You’re giving us a headache.” If anything the use of ‘us’ makes Harry glare harder and Ron laugh more. _I hate you._

  


Hogwarts rises above him, glittering and bright. Sings to him, _home, home, home._ The hat on his head screams out SLYTHERIN and his chest feels too tight and raw to do more than smile victoriously and chant _home, home, home._

A boy with large hands holds his wrists behind his back while a girl with sharp nails and a sharper smile taunts him. Another boy, one of his yearmates, kicks his books and laughs. _You will never belong in this house. Stupid mudblood._ He slumps to the ground when they finally let him go.

The next time they lay their hands on him he thinks _I will burn my way into this house_ and when the boy with large hands pulls back with a cry his hands are burned and blistering.

*

The snake looks unbelievably delicate wrapped around his wrist. It’s small and green, and long enough to wrap itself around his wrist three times, tongue flickering out curiously when he runs a finger down the back of its head.

_You’re so small_ , he hisses, marveling at how calm it is.

_And you are very big_ , it hisses back, something close to amusement in its words. He hadn’t known snakes could feel amusement.

Billy’s hands when they hold him back are tight and he screams, knowing no one who hears him will care. The snake is hissing furiously, trying to get away and Dennis’s foot comes down and Amy’s laughter rings in his ears for months.

He hates them. He’ll make them regret this. He will. He hates them.

*

The streets smell like smoke but then, Tom’s not sure that London ever smells of anything else other than smoke anymore. Every time he leaves King’s Cross to hunt for food he wonders if this will be the last time he does so.

Yesterday he passed a collapsed building, the metal of the roof jagged and sharp where it jutted out from the guts of the house. It made his stomach churn and his chest go tight and jagged.

This will be the last year he has to worry about dying. _It has to be_. It has to be. He cannot bear another summer of wondering if each day is his last.

The raid sirens blare, his heart drops, King’s Cross is so close and yet it’s never felt further away.

*

The man’s suit is purple. This alone is enough to make Tom want to raise his eyebrows skeptically. The scorn though is quickly forgotten underneath the blinding panic that the man has come to take him away. That Cole has finally made good on her promise to have Tom dragged away and he won’t go, _he won’t_.

The man, Dumbledore, tells him that he belongs. Tells him that there’s a school for people like him. Tells him that he’s not alone. And for a minute, there’s a wild bright hope flaring it’s way through his chest and he thinks _please, please, please_.

Then he makes the mistake of telling Dumbledore that he can speak to snakes. Makes the mistake of trusting an adult and his wardrobe is _burning_ and he hates him. _Hates, hates, hates him._

_I’ll make you regret this_ , he promises Dumbledore silently, hoping he can read that promise in his eyes, _I will make you regret ever meeting me_.

*

“I would ask that you let me stay at Hogwarts over the summer,” he says politely, voice even. “It’s only that – ”

“Ah, I’m sorry Tom,” Dippet says, cutting him off, not caring about his explanation. “But we do not allow students to stay at Hogwarts over the summer.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that and I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t feel that it was necessary. There is a war in the muggle world and the –” he swallows bitterly, “ – orphanage that I stay at is not equipped to keep me safe.”

Dippet falters and Tom knows, he just knows that he’s going to say yes. That Tom will get to stay here, at Hogwarts, safe and happy and then Dumbledore clears his fool throat and ruins it.

“I’m sorry, but I must insist against this. We can’t be seen making exceptions for one student but not for others.”

*

There’s a girl lying on the bathroom floor, eyes wide and glassy. Her glasses are cracked and her uniform is wet and this wasn’t what –

*

A bomb hits down close enough that he can feel the vibrations of it in King’s Cross and he shoves himself farther back into the corner and covers his head and –

*

The man’s face looks just like his. It’s like looking in a mirror that shows the future and he hates this man that shares his face. That left him to grow up in an orphanage, alone and hated.

The man’s face looks just like his, which means that there’s nothing of his mother in his face at all and he –

  


They come awake gasping for air. Come awake gasping and choking on the memories, trying to find the seam where one of them ends and the other one begins and it is –

– it is more difficult than either of them like.

At some point they twist, chest halfway off the bed and distantly they hear themselves gasping desperately and the seam of their memories is still so fucking fuzzy.

“Ron! Ron!” Harry’s voice is far too loud and they force their eyes open to find him on his knees in front of them, hands hovering worriedly, eyes wide and scared.

“Harry,” they croak and then keeps saying it because it feels good. “Harry, Harry, Harry…”

_We have to get him away from Dumbledore,_ he thinks absently and then pauses, cuts off in the middle of saying Harry’s name. Why do we have to do that?

_Because Dumbledore is a happiness sucking leech who will, if given half a chance, ruin people._ Voldemort thinks back, sounding just as confused. _Is your mother really so…_ There’s a pause and the feeling of hands grasping, _…so, aggressively nice._

He’s never heard his mother described like that but, “Harry? Harry, I have a question,” he says, the words sounding less blurred together than Harry’s name had. Harry nods, hands still hovering, brow creased. “Is mum, is she, aggressively nice?”

Harry blinks once. His hands stop moving and then drop all together. “What?” He blinks again, places the flat of one his hands against Ron’s forehead and they, well they won’t say they’re proud of it, but they lean into it. They may have done this a bit too aggressively because the next thing they know they’re falling onto the floor head first as Harry yelps in surprise.

_Did that help somehow?_ he asks, blinking up at the ceiling and feeling their head clear a bit.

_Did the pain of falling onto the floor, the cold air and the humiliation of what we just did clear our head?_ Voldemort asks dryly. _Yes, I do believe it might have._

“What. The. Fuck.” Ron mutters, feeling Voldemort echo the sentiment. “Wait, why am I in control?” He asks, pulling his hand up to stare at it. Voldemort snatches control back immediately.

“You’re not. I am. Obviously.” They can see Harry scooting backwards out of the corner of their eye. Ron considers this, considers the memories that are slowly slotting into place, and –

“HAH!” he yells, startling Harry and he hears Neville mutter something rude and very un-Neville like. “I am in control! I knew I could do it!”

“No, you’re not,” Voldemort grits out, yanking control back again. “I am not going to engage in this childish game of keep away.”

“Then stop playing,” he says gleefully, sticking his tongue out at the ceiling.

_I hate you,_ Voldemort hisses, but he doesn’t yank control back again.

_You can have it back after classes,_ Ron concedes, not wanting to actually play keep away with his body all day. They’ll end up falling down the stairs and breaking something if they do that. Namely, themselves.

_Fine. But only because I want to, not because you said it._

Ron grins and then, _Do you want to talk about what happened?_

_Absolutely not, it’s bad enough that you know any of that at all. Do not bring it up._

Ron hums quietly, drags himself off the floor and grins at Harry, who is staring at him with wide eyes and clenched hands. Harry, who is still far smaller than he should be and who had begged to not go back to the Dursley’s that first summer. Harry, who came back every year too skinny and with more bruises.

Harry, who put Dumbledore on a pedestal even Ron wasn’t always sure he understood.

Oh fuck.

He’s got a dark version of Harry in his head. He really, really doesn’t feel like he deserves this.

  


Ron spends the next few days going to classes, switching control with Voldemort in a manner slightly more amicable than how they have been switching, and trying to determine what he’s going to do about the Dark Harry currently residing in his head.

He has, of course, been careful to not let Voldemort hear him refer to him that way. Harry hasn’t said anything about the back-and-forth they had after their shared – mixed? – nightmare, and none of the other boys have said or done anything that makes Ron think they know. He can’t help but assume though that Harry had indeed told Hermione, who seems to be staring at them more intensely than ever. Voldemort, similarly, seems to be happy imagining that none of it had happened at all.

But none of that answers any of his questions.

What does he do about Voldemort? And, still keeping his mind quiet, he wonders, how can he find enough privacy to explain to Harry and Hermione what he’s seen, without Voldemort infringing on their privacy. How can he explain to them that the sight of Dumbledore is now making not only Voldemort mentally growl in anger, but is making Ron himself experience a gut-churning unease that has to be coming from _him_ , because it arises out of concern for _Harry_?

He doesn’t know. It’s harder to think about too, because Voldemort seems just as eager not to think on it, as Ron is to think about it. He ends up having to keep his thoughts as impeccably private as he can, a skill which he’s, fortunately, started to get used to.

All this introspection is forgotten of course, when Voldemort abruptly wrenches control back and begins to stalk down the hallway in the opposite direction of Gryffindor Tower.

_Rude_ , Ron says, and focuses intently on a mental image of a tongue being stuck out.

Voldemort doesn’t say anything, because of course he doesn’t. That courtesy would surely be too difficult for him. (Ron thinks that aloud as well, and gets a quick, short slap of irritation that makes him grin to himself.)

It’s when they go towards a certain corner of the school that Ron begins to tense.

_What are we doing here?_ He hazards to ask. _There aren’t any classrooms on this hall._

“ _We_ are doing nothing,” mutters Voldemort. “ _I_ am visiting a friend. Be quiet.”

_You don’t have friends though,_ Ron blurts it out before he can stop himself, and then pauses. Their steps are drawing closer and closer to that particular room he really never wants to see again, and he has to clamp down on the abrupt rush of clarity that tells him who, or what, Voldemort’s “friend” must be. Then he forces himself to hold that certainty in his mind and not go on, waiting to see if Voldemort noticed anything.

He must not have, because he doesn’t react. But he does press open the door of the girl’s bathroom on the second floor, stepping neatly over the thin puddle of water that always seems to gather in the threshold, and Ron quite honestly can’t come up with any reason not to freak the fuck out.

So he freaks the fuck out.

_GO BACK RIGHT NOW! WE ARE NOT GOING DOWN THERE!_ he yells. Being just a sort of consciousness in the back of his own mind, he can’t really press his limbs into proper flailing against an aggressor. He can, however, mentally grab for his own body, and he does. The skill is another that he didn’t have before, but like deciding when and how to ‘speak’ to Voldemort, understanding when he does and doesn’t have a hold of his own muscles is also becoming more natural.

Ron’s body twitches as Voldemort is caught by surprise. They almost trip and fall on the floor, but the Dark Lord manages to grab control of an arm and catch himself.

“What in the name of Morgana is wrong with you _now_?” Voldemort hisses under his breath.

Ron doesn’t dignify that with a response.

For all his attempts at body-snatching, Voldemort snatches critical control of their throat and _hisses_. Something feels extremely wrong with Ron’s mouth for a crucial second, and then it’s gone, replaced by a grinding sink opening up into a dank hole.

While he knows that the basilisk is long dead (thanks Harry), he can physically feel himself leaning back as if repelled. That must mean he’s very, very repelled indeed, because he doesn’t even have control of his body right now. Nevertheless his own repulsion is forcing Voldemort’s movements to slow, and their hands are trembling, likely because of Ron and only Ron.

“What is _wrong_ with you?” Voldemort mutters as he climbs into the hole. Ron is bracing himself for the inevitable horrid mockery of a waterslide, so it shocks him when Voldemort hisses again. A spiral staircase appears with a grinding sound.

_I am so angry,_ is all Ron can think.

Then again, watching Lockhart vanish into the chute, screaming all the while, had been, and still was, a certain kind of comforting hilarity that had come from the whole situation.

He doesn’t try as hard to yank away control on the stairs. Rather, he goes totally quiet once more, and tries to project a sense of defeat as best he can. It’s a long climb down, and Voldemort appears to relax, sighing, with what Ron assumes is relief, when their hands no longer tremble.

Ron himself can feel their stomach twisting with his own nausea, but he knows he’ll have a better chance of wresting control if he comes at it out of nowhere, and if he doesn’t do it on the stairs where they could fall and crack their skull open. There’s also the fact that the Lockhart cave-in lies between them and the basilisk, and Harry and Ginny could barely crawl back through as scrawny twelve year olds. Ron is the tallest of all three of them now, and he grew a _lot_ last year. Even though said growth was mostly up, not out, he doesn’t think his shoulders will fit through the gap that currently exists. And since right now, his shoulders are Voldemort’s shoulders…

It’ll be fine.

When they finally reach the end of the steps, Voldemort spends a while glaring at the cave-in.

_Just go back up_ , Ron says irritably. Predictably, Voldemort does not listen to him and once again, everything is very much _not_ fine.

_“Constructare,”_ Voldemort grits out, and the stones _grind_ against each other horribly until a small archway sits in the middle of the heap.

_Oh, you utter bastard!_ Ron yells, and grabs for control of the legs.

“I didn’t take you to be afraid of a simple secret chamber,” Voldemort gripes at him. The horrible not-pun is enough to make Ron stop fighting in favor of mentally gaping in shock, and the Dark Harry who currently lives in his head continues to make his way forward.

_Turn around_ , Ron snaps when they reach a strange snake-engraved door.

“No.”

_Voldemort_ , Ron says in an attempt to get his attention – and Voldemort does pause at that, hand hovering over the stonework without touching it.

_You really don’t want to go in there,_ Ron goes on. He doesn’t even have to try in order to inject urgency into his tone.

There’s a pause, during which he dares to hope he’s gotten through to the dark bastard somehow.

“No, I really think I do,” Voldemort says, and hisses.

Ron really, really wishes that he could close his own eyes.

As it happens, when he sees the basilisk, he does in fact squeeze his eyes shut. That’s surprising because he’s pretty sure he did it, but he wasn’t trying to take control.

Before he can decide whether or not to be worried about that, though, there’s a raw scream. Their own throat hurts in time with the noise, which leads Ron to believe that it came from them. For a moment he worries this is also him, but then he listens to it again. It’s not a horrified yelp, and it’s –

It’s going on for far too long, and it sounds far too anguished.

He tries to focus on their body and what it’s doing, but it’s sprinting across the open space of the Chamber and heading right for the bloody head of the basilisk where it lies on the floor, turned on its side, jaws askew. A massive bloodstain puddles under its head, and everything slows down long enough for Ron to feel absolute horror that Harry – scrawny twelve-year old Harry – fought this thing and _lived_. 

“No no no no,” he hears his voice chanting. They fall to their knees by the bloody massive head and, for some reason, start trying to heave it right side up with frantic movements. Ron is recoiling again, but instead of fighting him, Voldemort is just making their hands shake even worse. “No _no_ , Nagendra wake up, please wake up, no, don’t be, please don’t be d – ”

There’s a strange choking noise, and Ron snaps.

“You can’t be serious!” he shrieks, and to his surprise finds he has control of the mouth. Their eyes are burning, and Ron can’t spare the moment to think about all the reasons why that is horrifying and absurd.

_“Nagendra,”_ is all Voldemort says.

Then it’s back to Ron, and he really has no compunctions about this.

“The fuck is wrong with you?!” he shouts, and yanks them both away from the great big dead snake. “You can feel bad when _evil massive snakes_ are dead, and not when _real people_ are dead?! How do you even – ”

His mouth is snatched from him in order to make a strange and wounded noise that Ron can’t quite bring himself to label as coming from Voldemort. “Snakes are real people!” Voldemort shrieks back at him.

“The fuck they are!” Ron snaps. “That monster almost killed Harry and Hermione! And a bunch of other kids too – I’m glad it’s dead, good riddance!”

With a snarl of rage, Voldemort mentally lunges for him, and – that hasn’t happened before.

Ron braces himself as best he can before the mental recoil hits him. Then he loses track entirely of the outside world, too occupied with struggling against Voldemort for control of every muscle group. They might have hit their head on the wet, grimey floor, but Ron figures if they did then he’ll deal with that after.

If they had fought like this when he was newly possessed, he wouldn’t have won. But there’s a trick to having mental presence in the world of the brain, or wherever they are when they’re possessing each other, and Ron has gotten much better at understanding how to move his – essence, he supposes. He’s also gotten much stronger, the metaphysical equivalent of intense fitness training, given how often he and Voldemort fight with each other for control these days.

Normally Voldemort is just about as good as him, with an edge of skill that Ron hasn’t yet been able to match. But at this moment, his game is off. Ron can hear a noise echoing in their shared mindscape that sounds like sobbing, and he still isn’t thinking about that because he really needs to wrap his mind around it and now really just is not the time to do so. But it puts Voldemort off his usual game and gives Ron the edge instead. The Dark Lord makes clumsy mistakes, and Ron finally – and with staggering ease – throws Voldemort entirely away from the body.

Turns out they did hit their head. They’re also on the floor, which is covered in damp, scummy grime. It’s on their robes. Ron mimes a gagging motion, and forcibly tightens his control of the body. There’s a trick to, for lack of a better word, locking yourself into the safety harness. When he’s done with that, Ron finally looks for Voldemort.

There’s that faint echoing noise of sobbing again. Now that the adrenaline of fighting is draining away, the noise makes him decidedly uncomfortable, and he tries to ignore it.

With a sigh, he plods back to the entrance, and is very grateful to find that the stairs are still there. It’s a longer walk up than it was down, and he tries to hurry, using hasty cleaning charms on his hair and robes as he goes. He still feels gross, but at least he won’t look like he was just rolling around in an ancient, dank Chamber. Once he exits, the sinks remain open behind him, and he experiences an unpleasant five minutes of panic before he manages to focus back on that wrong feeling in his mouth, and _yanks_ on Voldemort’s magical abilities, finally managing to order the sinks to close up behind him.

Before he can lose any more time, he goes to find Harry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Atlanta**
>
>> Ronald Weasley has officially reached his limit. That limit is, wildly enough, not being possessed by the literal dark lord, but grieving over giant snakes that tried to kill his friends.


End file.
